This invention relates to improvements in commercial garment shipping cartons or portable wardrobes of the type having a hanger bar device suspended across the upper end of the container to provide a support for the garment hangers. Typically, the hanger support includes a main support bar which extends across the top of the carton and a pair of downwardly opening channel-shaped end supports by which the device is attached to the upper edge of a pair of opposite carton sidewalls. Usually some means is provided to prevent the hangers from falling off the bar.
While such hanger bars are commercially available in a wide variety of sizes and configurations, they generally can be considered as falling into two groups, namely those adapted for heavy-duty use and those suited for lightweight use. In general, the heavy-duty type of hanger bar is used by the garment industry where it is important that the garments be securely held during shipment so that they do not fall to the bottom of the carton or otherwise become disrupted which would require that the clothes be cleaned and/or pressed. In contrast, the less expensive, lightweight type of hanger bar is used almost universally in the moving and storage industry where the garment loads usually are not as substantial and where the garments, being but a small part of the shipment, often are not handled with the utmost of care. In general, the heavy-duty type of hangers are considered too expensive for the moving industry and the lightweight type of hangers are considered unsuitable for use in heavy-duty applications, such as the garment industry.
A typical characteristic of the heavy-duty type of hanger bar is that the main support bar is formed initially as a separate piece from the end support members, the main bar and end support members being subsequently secured to complete the unit. In contrast, the lightweight hanger bar often is formed in a single, integral piece in a stamping procedure which is considerably less expensive than the multi-piece construction of the heavy-duty bar.
Each type of hanger bar presents its difficulties. For example, in the three-piece type of device having separate, non-unitary end support channels, the cost of manufacture and assembly necessarily is increased because three separate pieces must be stamped and then assembled. In addition, the end support channels typically are attached to the main support bar by a number of interfitting tabs and slots which cannot provide the rigidity of a single, unitary one-piece construction. With the three-piece type of device, there always is the possibility that the end support channels may separate inadvertently. Notwithstanding these difficulties, the three-piece type of bar has been and continues to be in wide use, particularly in those environments where the bar is intended to carry a very substantial number of garments and thus be subjected to substantial loads.
The lightweight one-piece bars are of considerably thinner gauge material than the three-piece bars. For example, a typical three-piece hanger bar may be formed from sheet metal of the order of 0.040" and 0.048" thick, whereas a typical one-piece bar is formed from sheet metal of the order of 0.030" thick or less. While efforts have been made in the past to cold stamp one piece bars from heavier gauge material comparable to the gauge used in the heavy-duty three-piece bars, those efforts have not resulted in a commercially usable product. One of the difficulties has resulted from the fact that the metal in the transition region from the main support to the end support channels requires considerable stretching and drawing of metal. The heavier gauges of metal tend to crack or become very weak in the transition region. This is true even with many lightweight bars and, as a result, lightweight bars usually are formed to define a gradual and smooth transition region between the main bar and the end supports. As will be described, that results in end supports which do not effect a firm grip on the sidewalls of the container and also results in a device which cannot carry hangers near the ends of the support bar, thus reducing the number of hangers which the carton can receive. This is undesirable where maximum garment packing density is required, such as in the garment industry.
While it would be desirable to achieve the manufacturing economies of the cold stamping process in the manufacture of a heavy-duty one-piece unitary bar, those advantages have not before been achievable in a bar formed from thick material and capable of handling heavy garment loads. As a result, the one-piece bars typically have been used only where maximum packing density of garments is not required, where the possibility of the bar working loose is not critical, and where strength is not critical.
Also among the difficulties encountered with both types of presently available bars is that their end supports do not effect as firm a grip on the container sidewalls as would be desired. While this problem is more pronounced with the one-piece stamped hanger bars, it still is a problem even with the three-piece bars. An additional object of the invention is to provide improved configuration for the end support members which provides enhanced resistance to shifting of the support members on the container sidewalls.
As mentioned above, the hanger bars often are provided with a locking bar which extends over and along the top of the hanger bar to clamp the hangers onto the bar and to preclude them from falling off the bar. The present invention includes a number of improvements to such locking bars.